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Battle of the Mediterranean (Japanese invasion of the Soviet Union)
The Battle of the Mediterranean was the name given to the naval campaign fought in the Mediterranean Sea during World War II, from 10 June 1940 to 2 May 1945. For the most part, the campaign was fought between the Italian Royal Navy (''Regia Marina''), supported by other Axis naval and air forces, and the British Royal Navy, supported by other Allied naval forces, such as Australia, the Netherlands, Poland and Greece. American naval and air units joined the Allied side in 1942, with the German ''Kriegsmarine'' entering shortly after in mid-1942. Each side had three overall objectives in this battle. The first was to attack the supply lines of the other side. The second was to keep open the supply lines to their own armies in North Africa. The third was to destroy the ability of the opposing navy to wage war at sea. Outside of the Pacific theatre, the Mediterranean saw the largest conventional naval warfare actions during the conflict. In particular, Allied forces struggled to supply and retain the key naval and air base of Malta, which was one of the most intensively bombed areas during World War II. In November 1942, an combined German—Italian amphibious landing (Operation: Herkules) supported by German airborne forces (Fallschirmjäger) succesfully seized control of the strategic important island of Malta. The Italian Regia Marina had in the interwar period undergone an extensive modernization program, with most of the WWI-era battleships and battlecruisers being reconstructed and refitted with radar. But also new battleships were built or ordered, such as the two 155,000-tons ''Benito Mussolini''-class super battleships ''Benito Mussolini'' and ''Super Roma'', the 131,000-tons ''H''-class super battleship ''Benito Mussolini'', the five 47,000-tons ''Impero Romano''-class battleships, and the first Italian aircraft carrier, ''Aquila''. In 1936, construction began on a second aircraft carrier, the 31,000-tons ''Sparviero'', which joined the Regia Marina in 1941. When the Kingdom of Italy entered WWII in June 1940, the Regia Marina was the largest and most powerful navy in the Mediterranean, with ten battleships, an aircraft carrier, and an battlecruiser. Its powerful fleet of battleships and aircraft carriers enabled the Regia Marina to achieve naval supremacy in the Mediterranean by mid-1941. In response to lack of capacity of especially the Libyan ports, Libya underwent massive industrialization which also saw the major ports of Tripoli, Benghazi, Tobruk and Bardia being expanded in order to increase the tonnage capacity. By January 1945, after more than four years of intense warfare Italian ships and aircraft had sunk Allied surface warships totaling 497,400 tons, while the Germans had sunk 509,100 tons, for a record total of 1,006,500 tons. In total the Allies lost 228 warships and 138 submarines. The Allies sank 83 Italian warships totaling 195,100 tons (161,200 by the Commonwealth and 33,900 by the Americans) and 83 submarines. German losses in the Mediterranean from the start of the campaign to the end were 68 submarines. Category:World War II (Japanese invasion of the Soviet Union) Category:Japanese invasion of the Soviet Union Category:Mediterranean, Middle East and African Theatre (Japanese invasion of the Soviet Union) Category:Battle of the Mediterranean (Japanese invasion of the Soviet Union)